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Praise Without Limits
Good Morning, Good Morning! Ready to take on another week? Good! Excellent!
Got your coffee ready? Mmmmm….smell that fresh ground Columbian! Smells great, doesn’t it? That’s the kind of aroma I like to start the day.
Got a lot to share with you today, as well as this week, so, let’s get started.
During a part of 1984, all of 1985, and much of 1986, as the president of the newly-formed Union Bond & Trust Company, I engaged in some very large financial transactions with several bankers and brokerage houses in recycling some $20 Billion in corporate funds into low-interest small-business loans. My personal commissions, amounting to nearly $7 Million, were paid into a trust, along with the commissions for two other international bankers and a brokerage house. In January of 1987, just as the funds were to be disbursed from the trust account at a prime bank in Los Angeles, the trust officer of our group (who was the president of a California savings and loan and an integral part of this whole operation -- but not a direct employee of the prime bank) fled the country, transferring all of our moneys to off-shore banks. By the time we all realized what had happened, the trust officer had successfully disappeared with $25 - 30 Million, and we were -- all of us -- left high and dry.
Bankrupt is what we really were. Friends had loaned me operational moneys because they saw the validity of the transactions and knew that I would repay them. Suddenly, I had no way to repay them. In the aftermath of the emotional crash that followed, the Lord spoke to me very simply and clearly. He said, "I don't need you to fund my plans, and I'm not broke."
The meaning was clear. I had been seeking to generate funds using my own abilities and talents in order to fund a new ministry called, The House of Praise, build a structure to house the ministry, and have the wherewithal to pay the wages and salaries of a team of worshipers in the same way that David did. It began to dawn on me that I was trying to put something together without a specific rhema from the Lord. To say that I was puzzled and frustrated doesn't begin to describe my state of mind. I knew, unequivocally, that the Lord had given me the vision, and that he had shown me His heart's desire. Why weren't any of my efforts to pursue that vision bringing any results, I wondered. More than that, why such a crash after so prolonged a period of effort? Was I missing something?
Obviously! The lessons weren't through, however.
After nearly four years of recovering financially from the banking debacle, Della and I were discussing the vision, and I decided to make another effort to get things off dead center. Without saying anything to her, I prepared and placed advertisements in the Anchorage Daily News for singers and musicians oriented towards praise and worship.
O.K.! O.K.! So, I'm a little dense!
Della called me one day a couple of weeks later from her office. The receptionist at my office put her on hold for several minutes because I was tied up with an interview. When I picked up her line, she asked me what I was doing, and why it took so long for me to respond. I told her that I was interviewing some people in response to the newspaper advertisement. I explained the nature of the ad to her, and suddenly she burst out laughing. "You're interviewing for God!?!"
Wives! Sometimes they can be so exasperating! Especially when they're right! Nevertheless, Della patiently rode out the next couple of weeks with me as I continued my interviews, sometimes having people come to our home. In the end, all my interviewees vanished into the woodwork. When they found out that this was a volunteer arrangement, and that there was no money and no television or radio appearances, they remembered that they had to pick up a sister at the airport, or that their truck was stuck in a snow bank, or that they were having company over for dinner and the stove needed fixing -- or whatever -- every last one of them!
Now I was frustrated! Finally, I said to Della, "O.K., I give up. I have no idea why this isn't working -- any of it -- but I'm through! If the Lord wants to bring this about, He's going to have to do it, lock, stock and barrel."
A few weeks later, I was sharing the vision for praise, ministry to the Lord, and the call of the Holy Spirit to intimacy at Anchorage Foursquare Church when -- through a series of seemingly peripheral events -- the Lord brought Earle Treend into the picture. On this particular Sunday, Earle came in and sat down directly in front of Della. Throughout the service that morning, Della kept making motions to me and pointing at Earle. She kept mouthing the words so I would read her lips, "this man is a worshipper!" We met immediately following the service. An instantaneous bonding took place in the realm of the spirit as we shared with one another.
That day, immediately after returning home, Earle called his wife, Marcia, who happened to be visiting friends in Canada, and shared with her some of the things of the morning, along with the vision. They both began to cry out to the Lord to allow them to be a part of that vision. Marcia returned to Anchorage a few days later, and in the weeks that followed, we all began to get together to share more and more of what the Lord had been saying to us.
We decided to take a hike over the Fourth of July weekend into the mountains overlooking the city of Anchorage. Sitting on Flattop Mountain, we discussed the need to get together -- even if it was just the four of us -- to begin ministering to the Lord. Another two weeks went by. It was the 17th of July, 1991, and we were having dinner -- the four of us. Della said, "We need to begin now -- tonight! If we just keep waiting for something magic to happen, or for the Lord to suddenly drop in on us and say, NOW!, nothing is ever going to happen. We'll never get started if we just keep putting it off."
As soon as we finished dinner, we began to praise and worship -- well, praise, anyway (looking back, I can say that we did not really understand or know about worship). It was a start. We resolved that we were going to make time -- no matter how busy and hectic our schedules were -- each day to minister to the Lord.
That's how things began. It was no small feat for us to get together each day. I was working from 60 to 70 hours per week as the chief engineer for the local FOX television station, and on call 24-hours per day. Della was putting in a similar number of hours managing the largest jewelry store in Alaska for Zales’ Jewelers, and functioning as the assistant regional manager. Earle had just opened a regional office for a world-wide technical services firm, Tad Telecommunications, and was working six and seven days a week. Marcia was helping him in his office, and working for an airline.
There were many days at first, when we timed ourselves to the minute. I would pick up Della at her office and head home (usually on a lunch, or afternoon coffee break). Earle and Marcia would arrive moments later. They would come in the door and drop their coats. We would join hands and begin praising and worshipping instantly. There was no time for chit-chat. Then they would grab their coats and rush back to their offices, and we were close on their heels.
We look back now and chuckle at the comedy of our daily routines. It was almost like Laurel and Hardy or the Marx Brothers, and yet it was serious business. The Lord honored those efforts, and fruit began to come from it.
The Lord had been dealing with Della about resigning from her position in order to spend more time with Him and the family. This made things difficult because it meant cutting our family income by at least fifty percent. Her employer made things interesting by offering to double her salary in order to keep her, and even guaranteeing her the regional manager's position with a shot at an even higher corporate office. Nevertheless, Della resigned effective September 1, 1991.
Within sixty days, Marcia followed suit, resigning from both her positions. Now, suddenly, our gathering together was not so rushed. We were able to spend an hour in praise and worship, then two hours, then three hours (the longer periods of time usually occurred on the weekends), and even more.
The Lord began to give us new music. We began to move away from praise and into worship. As we sat down to our instruments, a new and spontaneous form of worship began to come forth. We have likened it to speaking in tongues. In the same way that a person who speaks in tongues neither plans nor understands the words which he or she is speaking (because they come forth by the Holy Spirit, and not as a product of one's intellect), the Holy Spirit began to flow through us -- together -- musically. It is one thing for a musician to play spontaneously by himself, and something else altogether to do it with other musicians and singers.
The lead in the music never depended on one person. Sometimes I would begin with a theme on the classical guitar. Earle would hear a melody flowing through his spirit and begin playing it on the trombone. Sometimes Della and Marcia would sing wordlessly, sometimes in tongues, and sometimes with words in English. It was nothing less than spectacular! Occasionally, the Lord would give Earle the words as we were worshipping, and he would begin singing.
Marcia had been principal cellist with the Detroit Symphony and the Spokane Symphony for many years when the Lord instructed her to put the cello away. Now, He made it clear that it was time to get the cello out of
it's dusty case and begin to play again. It's one thing for a musician who plays by ear to play spontaneously and something else entirely for a classically trained musician who is accustomed to having the sheet music to work from -- especially when one has played only from sheet music for forty or fifty years. Just as is true with speaking in tongues, one must "turn off" the mind and thinking processes in order to flow with the Holy Spirit in playing spontaneous worship. It must come entirely through the spirit. Marcia was able to adapt within fairly short order.
I know! I know! Whoever heard of merging classical guitar, trombone, cello, and voices together in a unified sound? Nevertheless, it was incredible!
Beyond the remarkable sound, however, something else was occurring of far greater significance: what began as praise and scripture-oriented music (because that was our reference point when we started) now began to become genuine worship (and I will explain the difference in a moment). We found that we were receiving visions -- visual images -- in the midst of the worship. We were being transported into the heavenlies as the Lord began to reveal His heart and His desire. We were ushered -- from time to time -- into the throne room. We began to experience His glory in a realm none of us could have imagined. We saw and heard literally thousands upon thousands of angels singing in concert with us. We were transported to the Garden. We began to see and experience a flow of love between us and the Lord Jesus Christ as our Bridegroom. It was personal and corporate two-way exchanges as the Lord communicated love to us.
Before long, we discovered that we were enveloped in this atmosphere of worship around the clock. We would go to bed with worship flowing through our spirits. We would sometimes awaken in the middle of the night singing in tongues. When we awoke in the morning, worship was flowing through our whole beings. We were brought to an awareness of living worship 24 hours per day.
It dawned on me one day, that we had become the epitome of what David had envisioned. We were the "House of Praise" -- and better yet, we had become a "House of Worship." What I had struggled for so many years to accomplish after the flesh, the Lord had accomplished in us after the Spirit. I saw, then, why all of my efforts had failed so dismally.
The Lord was not after a people who made intellectual decisions to express love, and mouth their platitudes of praise. That which comes of the intellect is predicated on knowledge -- specifically, the "Tree of Knowledge."
It's not that there is anything wrong with making decisions.
It's not that there is anything wrong with praise. The key is in understanding that there is nothing which completes a relationship in the realm of praise.
In the same way that phileo ("brotherly love") functions in the realm of the soul, the mind, the intellect, so also does praise function in the realm of the soul, the mind, the intellect. In the same way that agape (the highest kind of love) functions in the spirit and supersedes the soul and flesh, so also does worship function in the spirit; and it supersedes the actions and decisions of the soul, the mind, the intellect -- as well as the body or the flesh. Jesus made the statement (and we have been slow to understand it):
"God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit, and in truth." (see John 4:23-24)
The key to understanding is in realizing that the intellect is subject to change, depending upon external circumstances. Praise is given, or withheld, subject to our feelings and emotions, or external circumstances which prevail at the time. Hence the statement (in Hebrews 13:15),
"By Him, therefore, let us offer up the sacrifice of praise......"
The sacrifice, in this case, is the giving of praise in spite of external circumstances and conditions.
Worship, on the other hand, because it comes from the spirit, is not subject to external conditions and influences. It is not an act of the will. It supersedes the will. One does not worship because they decide to. One worships because it is a living truth -- it is a reality -- the product of an intimate love-relationship. One worships because their spirit is in communion -- intimate interchange and intercourse -- with the Lord, who is a Spirit.
Over the next five years, there were many musicians and singers who were added to this entourage. Della and I moved to the ranch in Post Falls, Idaho that Earle and Marcia Treend owned and used it as a base of operations from which to travel throughout the northwest and Canada. Earle and Marcia left Alaska two years later to return to their ranch. They had frequently traveled down from Alaska to join in our worship gatherings in the two years that we lived apart, and Della and I had traveled back to Alaska on numerous occasions as well.
People began to hear about these unusual praise and worship gatherings and come from hundreds and even thousands of miles away. Folks came from Kansas City. Some came from Florida. There were times when we had that tiny little farmhouse in Post Falls jammed to the four walls with people who wanted to be a part of this remarkable visitation. There were folks like Mary Ellen Olnick in Red Deer, Alberta, and Beryl Mjolsness in Cochrane, Alberta who traveled to the ranch frequently, and who opened their homes for similar gatherings in Canada. We even traveled to Detroit to share this worship experience in a Presbyterian Church.
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What was happening, however, transcended the music. We were often getting together seven nights a week, and sometimes continuously for days on end. The needs of people were often presented to us as we gathered together. People began to be born again, to receive Jesus Christ as their personal savior hundred of miles away while we were worshiping. Others were healed. A lady in San Francisco who was dying of brain cancer and given only weeks to live was healed completely while we were worshiping at the ranch.
A mother-to-be in Seattle called us to say that the doctors had said her baby would be born deformed, and that all of
its internal organs were outside the baby’s body in the womb. We were given specific music for healing that night, and a few weeks later, the baby was born, whole and perfect.
During a three month period in 1994, nearly all of the music was what I would describe as “battle music” – the music of spiritual warfare. One night as we were worshiping, the entire farmhouse began to shake violently. Everyone thought, “Earthquake,” jumped from their seats and ran outside. We could hear the rumbling of hoofbeats as though tens of thousands of horses were galloping in unison. It was the sound of an angelic army headed into battle. We returned to our instruments and our praise and worship realizing that we had been given a demonstration of what was taking place as we worshiped.
Although most of our gatherings were on the order of twelve to twenty people, we sometimes had more than forty singers and musicians. Each time, the experience was the same. New music flowed. We all played the same music as though we had practiced it together or had sheet music in front of us, and yet prior to our playing or singing, we’d never heard it before.
Those five years were life-changing for all of us. Although the Lord eventually scattered us all over the country, the vision has remained the same. We know that we will be building a permanent facility where this kind of praise and worship will go forth 24 hours per day with folks who have been called and anointed to minister to the Lord.
This nation needs this kind of ministry going forth. It breaks spiritual bondages in a way that nothing else can accomplish. It accomplishes what no diplomacy, no political machination and no war can ever hope to achieve. It breaks down the walls that keep folks in prison. It brings an unmatched peace and prosperity.
It is coming, my friends! Finish your coffee and enjoy the day God has for you. Blessings on you!
Regner A. Capener
EKKLESIA HOUSE
RR-15, Box 6180
Mission, TX 78574-9589
(956) 583-5355
This article may be reprinted, reposted, copied and re-used – in whole or in part – with proper attribution.
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